


Imbalance

by calligraphypenn



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 19:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calligraphypenn/pseuds/calligraphypenn
Summary: Every day is a busy day at the clinic. But Anders makes some time for a suffering Samson.





	Imbalance

Anders felt a bead of sweat trickle down his neck, breaking his concentration.

He didn't dare to breathe into the gaping cavern of skin and muscle in front of him. Instead, he sucked a thin breath in through his nose, and released it even more slowly.

If this was the Circle, then he'd have some nervy apprentice to wipe his forehead and hand him lyrium. He imagined one of his Darktown helpers doing the same and involuntarily shook his head. 

It wouldn't do do linger, he thought, gazing at the wound in front of him. A slash from a dirty knife had opened the abdomen, and, of course, it had happened around the corner.

Small blood droplets were dribbling past the barriers he had set, but the man wouldn't bleed to death. Far more dangerous was sepsis.

It took painstaking effort to find every speck of rust and dirt, but finally he sealed the shorn muscle, and with painstaking delicacy the layer of fat. Then it was a matter of regrowing the skin.

With a critical eye, Anders released the barriers, and blood rushed back into the area, turning it a furious red. Anders nodded, and sat back on his stool. With another moment of concentration he lifted the sleep barrier

He would have snapped his fingers to wake up the man—a refugee whose name he hadn't caught—but his hands were sticky with blood.

Anders prodded him awake with an elbow instead, and the man woke with a short scream, grabbing at the healed wound.

“Don't do that,” Anders said sharply. “It's still tender.”

“I...what...” the man said incoherently.

“Be sure to say thank you to your friends,” Anders told him. “Or make new ones. Whichever ones stabbed you, don't talk to them anymore.”

Anders got to his feet and turned around. His clinic was at its usual capacity—people standing about alone or in pairs, eyeing him warily or not looking at him at all. The refugees were mostly Ferelden peasants, the kind that Anders grew up with. They were used to muddy fields, muddy houses and going to the Chantry once a week in their mud-flecked best. They stood out like sore thumbs in Kirkwall. 

Kirkwallers as a whole were louche and sardonic, and they almost to a man ignored the shocky refugees in their midst. Anders found himself getting angry, and forced it down. Kirkwallers of a certain class, he amended, neglected the refugees. There were various factions within the city that acted out their wills, and Lirene had managed to find a number of Kirkwallers to donate money and labor. She was a far better ambassador than he was. 

Some of the refugees had been hinting to him that there were people who helped out “his type” in the city, and Anders kept an ear open for that. 

One man was praying in a rapid undertone at the clinic's rude altar, and Anders almost felt like a boor, clattering around with a bucket to wash his hands. He avoided touching the sides with his sticky hands, and he had gotten to picking dried blood from beneath his nails when he heard a shuffle.

“One moment,” he said tersely.

“Right,” a familiar voice rasped.

Anders looked up.

“Oh, it's you,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Raliegh Samson said, his thin lips twisting.

Anders said nothing back, but went back to scrubbing. Life on the streets was not treating Samson well. 

Anders had no idea how long it'd been, since the man had been kicked out of the Order, but it had undoubtedly been a while. Before the Feynriel affair, Anders had passed Samson time to time, and had even given him a copper once out of clinical pity. He'd even been discomforted by the meeting of their eyes—they had been knowing, somehow. 

He'd gotten some clarification when they'd talked to him to find Feynriel. Of course. A former Templar. Anders was prepared to let him know what he through about that—and then Samson had explained the circumstances and, well. He was torn.

All Templars were bastards. But Samson had lost his shield by taking a risk for a mage. In the Kirkwall Circle, that took stones and a level of compassion he was surprised Samson had.

Especially for a love letter. Anders felt his chest twinge, and reminded himself that Maddox had paid the ultimate price. But looking at the shell of a man in front of him, Samson hadn't gotten off easily either.

“What do you want?” he asked brusquely. 

“To the point, are we?” Samson responded. He had started rubbing his hands back and forth, as if to warm them. Anders watched. It was hot in the clinic.

“Yes,” Anders said. “I don't really make a point of talking to Templars, so this better be good.”

Samson laughed rustily. Strangely, any doubt that the man could be a Templar spy was wiped away at that. Anders had watched the whole debacle with Keran, so he knew that ejected Templars were wretchedly treated, and honestly he'd been glad of it. It served them right. But Samson seemed past despair and straight into bitter acceptance. His wryness seemed very familiar Anders.

“No,” Samson said, looking at him keenly. “I heard you give free care to all who come here, even the gangs.”

“Under certain conditions,” Anders hedged. Those conditions being a crowd of angry Fereldens willing to menace anyone trying to tip Anders' clinic.

“Good. My head hurts all the time,” Samson said promptly.

“I didn't say I'd help you,” Anders said, getting to his feet.

“Sure thing,” Samson said, and Anders scoffed as Samson plunked down on a wobbly stool as if his feet couldn't hold him up anymore.

Anders went and dumped the bloody water, and came back. Samson looked up at him.

“What's the issue?” Anders said. The sooner Samson was in and out of his clinic, the better. He couldn't really tell if his conflicting feelings were Justice and his own mind butting heads, but he knew enough that this wasn't something he wanted to linger on.

Samson's fingers were grey-tipped, Anders noted, and then he began to speak.

“It's the lyrium shakes, healer. They're getting worse and worse.”

Anders sighed. “Did you try to go off lyrium cold?”

“It's too expensive,” Samson groused, without answering Anders' question. “Maybe I'd be able to get back on my feet if it weren't. But it's gotten too hard of late.”

“All right,” Anders said after a moment of thinking. “Are you having any other symptoms?”

Anders made a habit of not keeping track of Templars in and outside the Tower, but he'd never heard of a Templar that lived long into retirement. He'd even been called in more than a few times when an elderly Templar was ailing—they always weakened quickly, and once they were bedridden it was only a matter of time.

So. Samson had mana imbalance. 

In all honesty, Anders didn't know what to do. Mages and Templars who drank too much lyrium had the same symptoms. Body tremors, sweating, bad dreams and hearing voices. It increased the connection to the Fade, which is why many mages played with the effects for research. 

But while mages could easily recover from mana imbalance with a few days of reduced lyrium consumption, no one without magic could without great agony. It seemed that smites and cleanses could not drain it from a Templar's system as magic did. 

“Headaches,” Samson said, and Anders believed him. “I'm sick a lot. And...” Here he stopped, and his lined face furrowed even more.

“Yes, yes,” Anders said. “The voices.” 

Samson looked at him, an expression of genuine surprise on his face. 

“It's likely not just you.” Anders said. “I imagine Kirkwall would drive anyone a little mad, but that's not what's causing this.” At least, he didn't think so. 

“That's good to know,” Samson said, and his face had relaxed slightly.

“Right,” Anders said briskly. “I don't keep lyrium in the clinic, or I'd give you a few drops. What we mages use isn't really too strong for you, I'm afraid.” Well, really his lyrium was hidden in a place where Samson would never find it, but Anders wasn't an idiot and he needed his lyrium stash in one piece. “But I can clear up your headache.”

“I'd be grateful,” Samson said. 

“Right, hold still then,” Anders said. Samson nodded, and Anders had to commend him—some Templars would have made a veiled threat or two to any mage who got too close with magic. He smiled briefly, remembering how he had to explain to a furious Greagoir how healing one of the nastier Templars with a burned hand also resulted in total hair loss for the woman.

It was brief enough—a simple matter of inducing some blood vessels to open a bit more—and Samson sagged with relief. But Anders felt the lyrium residue like an angry hum all throughout Samson's body.

“Appreciate it,” Samson said, rubbing his temples. He looked up at Anders then. “I don't want to be ungrateful, but the rest of it?”

“I'm not sure what to do there,” Anders said, now beginning to feel real regret. “You going off lyrium so quick is not good for you. How long have you not been a Templar?”

“Three years,” Samson said, a flash of real woe on his face. “I thought I'd be fine.”

“I've never heard of anyone...ejected from the Order before. Certainly not for what you did,” Anders commented cautiously. “At Kinloch you'd be scrubbing pots for two days. The Order doesn't just let people go. Transfer, a few days in the cells...”

“Lets a lot of bad people stay,” Samson agreed. “I never thought this would happen.”

And if I had, I wouldn't have done it. The words hung between them, and soured Anders' mood somewhat.

“Yes, well,” he said brusquely. “That's the Order for you. How bad did you say the voices were?”

“Getting worse,” Samson said, his directness surprising Anders. “It's whispers mostly, but it got real bad recently. All of a sudden. Almost shouting at times.”

“I'll...see what I can find out,” Anders said, and Samson seemed to be able to read his doubt off his face easily as book, as he got up immediately like he had received a dismissal.

“Thanks anyway,” Samson grunted. Anders supposed that was that.

“Stay away from Meredith's crew,” Samson said. “Healer like you…”

“Worth my weight in gold?” Anders said. “I've heard that before.”

Samson pulled a face. “They'd kill you,” he said.

They'd probably kill me anyway, for being an apostate in this town. “Why just for being a healer?” Anders said aloud.

“Because of the whole talking with fade things you all do,” Samson said. “A lot of the Tranquil you see wandering about?”

“Those were spirit healers?” Anders said sharply.

“When we asked what that glow was.” Samson rambled, barely listening.

“Whisps,” Anders said, putting one hand to his face. He took a deep breath and let is whistle out his nose.

“Yeah,” Samson said. “Keep dodging them, won't do your health any good if they get their hands on you.”

“Noted,” Anders said. “I was only taking the air here in the sewers, you see.”

Samson chuckled. Then looked hopefully at Anders.

“You wouldn't happen to have anything to eat around here?” he asked.

Anders didn't, and wavered a moment before digging into a pouch at his waist and pulling out a few coppers.

“The Hanged Man has a special. Hope you like fish pie. I know I don't.” he said. “It's not much, but...”

“No one is taking you for a high-roller, mage,” Samson said, almost dryly. But he took the coins anyway.

Anders walked Samson to the door, and saw him shamble up the ancient staircase of the alcove where his clinic was hidden.

Watching him go, Anders felt a prickling of unease. It made him rub his hands together in discomfort.

“Everything all right?” One of his assistants said.

“We might want to move the clinic,” Anders said absently. 

But with one thing and another, he didn't. It opened out into the sea air, and it was in the very depths of the tunnels. Samson, it seemed, hadn't ratted him out to any of his old friends.

 

It was years later that he heard anything of the man. They'd gotten back from the unsettling encounter with Corypheus. Anders had to be supported back a good amount of the way. It frightened him that the Taint in his blood was so far along that Corypheus could compel him like one of the mad dwarves they had to put down. As he put his clinic back to rights, he listened with one ear as a patient recounted how Samson had fallen off the dock in a fit a few days before. Anders frowned, but even when he made an excuse to pass by Samson's usual haunt he didn't find him there.

When Samson rejoined the Order, Anders was glad he hadn't. He funneled his rage into moving his clinic a level deeper. Things were coming to a head, and he knew the clinic wasn't long for the world either, but it would seem suspicious to everyone if he abandoned it.

One stifling night, he slouched back from Lowtown, head full of plans that didn't extend any further than the end of the week. Everything was set, the Collective was ready to do their job, and--

Anders froze midstep when he heard shouts coming down the hallway where the old clinic was. Cursing, he unclipped his staff and hurried the other way. It was hard not to check for sure but if it was Templars he wouldn't have a chance.

It was when he was in the midst of his buzz of adrenaline when an hand clamped down on his shoulder from an alcove set in the wall.

Anders bit back a shout, and swung his staff while channeling electricity down its length. The staff connected, and his assailant grunted. 

But then Anders felt his magic snuffed out, like fingers on a candleflame. He couldn't stop a gasp at that, and pulled his staff back for a blow across where the eyes would be.

“Stoppit,” the Templar grunted, and Anders bared his teeth. Samson. He should have figured.

“Son of a bitch,” he snarled, and Justice was humming below his skin when Samson snatched his wrist.

“I'm not gonna take you in,” Samson muttered. Anders couldn't see his face. How had Samson known it was him?

And had the man bathed in lyrium? He reeked of it.

“You need to shut down your damn clinic,” Samson said. “Go to ground. Get out of here. I don't know why you stayed.”

“Let go of me,” Anders raged.

Samson crushed his wrist in his grip instead. “I didn't tell them where it was. Believe me. They got it from someone else. I don't want to see your head dangling from the walls of the Gallows by the hair. Get out of the city.”

“You can be damned,” Anders said, and he could hear Justice in his voice now.

Samson shoved him against the wall so hard he felt his teeth clatter against each other. “Three days and I tell them someone spotted you here,” Samson said. “If that's what it takes, that's fine by me.” 

Samson shoved past him, and for a wild second Anders thought of letting Justice take over. But Samson walked away noisily, and no one came after him.

Anders went off at a run. His timeline had been shortened, and there was still so much to do.

If Samson knew…but he didn't. Anders wondered if he would even care.

At least Samson didn't seem like the praying type.


End file.
